iPhone How-To - page 2

If you’re tired of your kids’ or partner’s music polluting your music recommendations and history, there’s a solution. While Apple Music does not offer a built-in private mode, you can make your own using a Focus mode.

Turn on a special Focus mode, and Apple Music will ignore all the songs, artists and albums that play next.

It’s even possible to enable your private mode when you connect to a specific Bluetooth speaker, like a living room sound system. Or when you enter a specific location, like work. Here’s how to set it up — keep reading or watch our quick video.

Upcoming iOS 26 feature Apple Music Concerts solves one of music lovers’ biggest heartbreaks — finding out too late that your favorite artist already passed through your neighborhood on tour, unbeknownst to you.

The feature lets you see shows coming soon to your city, with convenient details on venues, ticketing, set lists and more. You can also look up an artist’s tour and see all their upcoming shows.

Supposedly, Apple Music Concerts will even notify you when a tour is coming nearby. The feature, available now in iOS 26.4 beta 2, hasn’t been out long enough for me to test. But if it works like the Apple Music notifications that alert you about new tracks, it could be a lifesaver.

Unfortunately, though, there’s one serious drawback. Here’s an overview of Apple Music Concerts. 

A hidden gesture on the iPhone and iPad lets you quickly select a bunch of items in a list — kind of like Command-A (⌘A) for Select All on a Mac. I use it all the time to select a bunch of emails to archive, a bunch of reminders to rearrange, a batch of files to sort, etc. 

Once you learn this two-finger swipe gesture, you’ll use it everywhere. It’s great for getting work done on the go with your phone. Watch our quick video or keep reading.

Accidentally texting the wrong person can bring disastrous consequences, and yet it’s incredibly simple to mix up threads. Luckily, iOS 26 offers a great way to keep things straight: You can add specific backgrounds to various Messages conversations on your iPhone so you can easily tell them apart.

For instance, if you set a shimmery blue background for your group chat with co-workers, you’ll never confuse that conversation for a sensitive one-on-one text with your closest colleague. You’ll never accidentally send a message to your boss meant for your partner if the chats look obviously different.

Setting up an iPhone Messages background is super-easy — here’s how it works.

Apple News gives you a streamlined way to keep up with current events. It’s a sane, if somewhat generic-looking, way to stay on top of the news that matters to you. If you want more, Apple News+ offers paywall-free access to major publications, local news and magazines. And to sweeten the deal, it has fun daily puzzles, excellent recipes and audio stories.

Admittedly, not a lot of people pay for Apple News+ on its own. It’s hardly a fan favorite. But if you have the Apple One Premier bundle, you can enjoy all of its hidden benefits — here’s how to make the most of it. Keep reading or watch our quick video. 

All the tiny signs, symbols and icons on the Apple Music app’s Now Playing screen lack labels — and it’s not obvious at all what they do. Do you know what tapping the infinity symbol does? How about the two wavy lines? 

This quick guide runs through all the Apple Music buttons and controls, so you can get acclimated to its interface. Keep reading or watch our short video.

Developer Mode lets you run unsigned code on your iPhone or iPad. Enable it, and you can download and run apps that are not from the App Store (or alternative app marketplaces) or in TestFlight, Apple’s tool that lets developers invite users to beta-test new apps.
If you want to write your own apps in Xcode, you will need to enable Developer Mode on your iPhone or iPad before running your app.
Developer Mode is also essential if you want to sideload apps onto your device from a Mac, using an app like Sideloadly. This could include apps that aren’t allowed on the App Store (such as porn app Hot Tub) or apps that are no longer available from their original developers, like Apollo (the now-shuttered Reddit client). For sideloading to work, you will need to turn on Developer Mode. 
Read on to see how to enable Developer Mode on your iPhone or iPad, as well as the potential security implications.

I finally figured out the perfect set of controls to assign to the iPhone’s Action button. I created a shortcut that cleverly combines the two controls I want to use it for.
The Action button can toggle the flashlight, mute audio, toggle an accessibility feature, open the camera, start translation, run any shortcut of your choosing and more. It’s so open-ended that figuring out what to use it for can trigger decision fatigue. 
Don’t panic — I discovered what you should use the iPhone’s action button for. And I’m sharing the shortcut, which combines two actions into one elegant system, so you can use it, too. 

If you want to make your iPhone easier to use, you can customize its Control Center to gain faster access to the buttons and toggles you rely upon to perform frequent tasks.
Plus, you can remove all the junk you never touch from the iPhone Contol Center, putting the vital controls you actually use front and center.
Keep reading to find out how and why you should customize the iPhone Control Center to make the device your own.

The new iPhone setup process gets easier every year. These days, you only need to do a few things to transfer all your old iPhone data to a new one. Still, certain tips and tricks can smooth the way.

The hot new tip this year is that you can directly transfer data from your old iPhone to your new one using a cable. Plus, other time-honored iPhone setup tricks will help things run smoothly. Here’s how to set up your new iPhone the right way.

Apple Music Replay is a great way to find your music stats for the past year: the most played songs, artists and albums in the last 12 months. Similar to Spotify Wrapped and the like, your annual Apple Music Replay is a fun way to see what tracks you listened to most.

Fun fact: Apple usually publicizes Apple Music Replay in December, but it’s actually updated weekly and available throughout the whole year! You can check in whenever you want to see how your year is shaping up.

We’ll show you how to find it and how to share your top music of the year to your friends and social media.

You can use the built-in iPhone Wallet app for some basic order tracking with classic Apple ease of use. No need to fiddle with finding and copying tracking numbers — your orders will appear there automatically. 
If you order something from an online store that doesn’t automatically integrate with the Wallet app, there’s a solution for that as well. If your device supports Apple Intelligence, it’ll scan your email inbox and add in all those Amazon orders, too. 
Here’s how the iPhone’s order-tracking feature works. 

You can hide apps on your iPhone so they’re completely invisible, and you can lock all kinds of apps so they require Face ID to open.
Why would you want to? Maybe you have sensitive content you don’t want anyone to see, or you don’t want anyone to know you’re using dating or hookup apps. Hiding apps is also good for staying off social media or away from addictive games. Plus, it’s a great way to declutter your iPhone’s Home Screen. You can really clean things up without deleting apps you might want to keep.
There are, however, a few essential apps on your phone that can’t be hidden. Here’s how it all works.

Knowing how to edit or unsend iMessages on your iPhone could come in clutch. Like when you text your mom, “Finally got laid today” when you meant to say “paid.”
Thankfully, it’s easy to rewrite history in iMessage. Let me show you how this lifesaving feature works.

In iOS 26, you can use Apple Cash in a group chat to make it super-easy to split a bill. You won’t need to chase down everyone separately if you use this incredibly convenient feature.
Here’s how to request money and send payments using Apple Cash from a group chat.

AutoFill on iPhone is supposed to help you out when you’re entering a password or typing in your email. When it doesn’t work, it can be incredibly frustrating — especially if you don’t know some complicated password offhand. The phone’s supposed to remember it so you don’t have to!

Sure, you could switch over to the Passwords app — or you can instantly autofill passwords right from the text box. AutoFill works anywhere you can input text, including third-party browsers.

In addition to passwords, you can autofill credit cards, contacts and more. You can even autofill scanned text from documents, signs and more using the camera.

Here’s how it’s done.

The Translate app built into your iPhone is a hidden gem if you’re traveling abroad. It gives you the ability to download languages in advance, so you don’t have to worry about a dodgy cellular connection.

The camera lets you translate text in-line of a restaurant menu or parking meter — it could help you out of a sticky situation. The Translate app’s conversation view makes it easy having a back-and-forth with someone who doesn’t speak your native tongue.

Here’s how to make the most out of the built-in Translate app.

Thanks to a settlement in a class-action lawsuit related to Siri and data privacy, most U.S. Apple users can receive up to $100. You just need to fill out an online form by July 2, 2025. (Spoiler alert: That’s today.)

You’re eligible for a settlement if you live in the United States and used Siri between September 17, 2014, (when Apple released “Hey Siri” in iOS 8) and December 31, 2024. You can receive up to $20 per device, for up to five devices, if you’ve ever accidentally triggered Siri in the middle of a private conversation or meeting.

Here’s how Apple got in this mess, how to find out if you’re eligible, and how to submit your claim.

you can turn off autocorrect on your iphone if you want your texts to come across as casual and laid back. psychologically, lowercase writing that isnt punctuated with apostrophes or periods read as more informal and friendly

turning off autocorrect is super-easy. you can even turn off capitalization but leave on corrections for spelling and grammar. see how awesome it is? heres how to do it!!! :)

iPhone Stolen Device Protection offers increased safety for your accounts and financial information if someone steals your handset and its passcode.

Here’s how to activate the security feature, and — more importantly — why you should do it now.

Apple has a daily crossword and crossword mini that you can play on your iPad and iPhone inside the News app. This feature is available to anyone with an Apple News+ subscription or the Apple One Premier bundle.

I absolutely love playing the crossword puzzles every day. I’m not very good at them, but it’s a fun challenge and it’s a well-designed app.

Here’s how it works.

There’s been another big data leak of over 16 billion records, and that’s a great opportunity to do something you’ve probably been procrastinating on: Replace your website passwords that hackers stole because of some lax security. Fortunately, Apple’s new Passwords app makes it easy to find out which of your passwords leaked so you can change passwords right on your iPhone.

Stay one step ahead by fixing a potentially serious problem now, before something bad happens.

You can see the past week’s weather on your iPhone in the Apple Weather app. It shows all kinds of detailed weather data — not just temperature and rain, but wind, humidity, visibility, pressure and more.

You also can easily see how that info compares to the average weather data to see if this is an unusually heavy winter or a particularly hot summer. Apple Weather even shows you details on the phase of the moon, all in iOS 17.

Here’s how it works.

The importance of backing up your iPhone messages is obvious. So, when you want to save text messages from iPhone, why settle for a backup that doesn’t let you access them?

Whether precious conversations with a loved one or vital information for a legal case, your messages deserve to be saved — and, more importantly, easily accessible on your computer.

Apple’s Image Playground is a free app for iPhone and other Apple devices that lets you generate unlimited AI images for free. You can generate images based on your friends, from a text prompt or totally from scratch, in a wide variety of themes and styles.

It’s part of Apple Intelligence, the growing set of AI features that work on the latest iPhones, Macs and iPads. Here’s how to use Image Playground.